THIS WEEKEND Johnny
Depp made the frame's four new releases walk the plank as his megablockbuster
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest
became the first film of the year to spend three consecutive weekends at
number one and zoomed past the $300M mark in record time. Among the new
offerings debuting in theaters, Sony's animated film Monster
House posted the best results opening in second place while
M. Night Shyamalan's latest supernatural thriller Lady
in the Water stumbled in its first weekend settling for third
place. The comedies Clerks II from
Kevin Smith and My Super Ex-Girlfriend
from Ivan Reitman debuted with more modest results outside the top five.
Overall ticket sales were a healthy amount ahead of last year's.

Sailing past more box office records with ease, Pirates
grossed $35.2M in its third weekend, according to final
studio figures, to remain the top choice among summer moviegoers across
North America. Off a moderate 44%, the Disney smash became the fastest
film to break the $300M mark when it surpassed the milestone on Saturday,
its 16th day of release. Star Wars Episode III
previously held the record doing the deed in 17 days last summer. Pirates
now stands at $321.9M after a mere 17 days and has soared up to number
16 on the list of all-time domestic blockbusters ahead of Harry
Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone which grossed $317.6M in 2001.

Dead Man's Chest also entered a
very exclusive club of films that reached the triple-century mark while
still at number one. It joins only 1982's E.T.,
1997's Titanic, and 2003's The
Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. The third weekend
hold for Pirates was commendable showing
that the high seas adventure is not falling apart like many action sequels
and instead still pleasing audiences. It now looks to be on course to reach
$400M in box office treasure. Overseas, the cume vaulted to $217M putting
the global gross at a staggering $538.7M in under three weeks.

Sony generated a solid debut for the animated film Monster
House which opened in second place with $22.2M from 3,553 locations.
The PG-rated tale about three kids who discover an evil home averaged an
impressive $6,253 per theater. Oscar-winning directors Steven Spielberg
and Robert Zemeckis served as executive producers and had their names used
prominently in the marketing. As the first toon for kids in over a month,
Monster scored with children and parents
who made up the bulk of the audience. The studio released the $75M production
in 163 3-D theaters which collected $2.6M of the overall gross for a sizzling
$16,012 average. Reviews were mostly positive.

Suffering his worst opening since becoming an A-list director, M. Night
Shyamalan saw his latest thriller Lady in the
Water struggle in its debut grossing $18M from 3,235 theaters.
The PG-13 film about a mysterious creature from the water who must return
to her world averaged $5,578 per site. The opening was less than half the
size of the $50.7M bow of Shyamalan's last film The
Village and less than one-third of the $60.1M that his previous
film Signs took in when it opened in
2002. Critics panned Lady which was
promoted as being a "bedtime story" as the Oscar-nominated filmmaker
earned the worst reviews of his career.

Shyamalan's last four thrillers were all released by Disney but after
The Village, the studio passed on the
opportunity to make Lady. The project
found itself over at Warner Bros. Village
opened impressively based on the brand name of Shyamalan, however negative
word-of-mouth led to it crashing 68% on the second weekend and quickly
disappearing soon after. In fact, its final domestic tally of $114.2M remains
the lowest gross ever for any film opening north of $50M. Many former fans
may have decided to pass on his follow-up which was Lady.
It could be rough seas ahead for Water
as well since its Saturday sales were flat compared to Friday's. Plus,
it has scored a weak B- average grade from over 3,000 users of Yahoo Movies
which means ticket buyers have not been very thrilled.

Universal's hit comedy You, Me, and Dupree
dropped a moderate 41% in its second weekend and placed fourth with $12.8M.
With a solid $45.3M in ten days, the $54M picture should find its way to
a sturdy $70-75M. Fellow sophomore comedy Little
Man saw a larger drop and fell 49% to $11M for a total of $40.6M
in ten days. Sony's $64M Wayans brothers film looks to find its way to
$60-65M.

Fans showed support for Kevin Smith whose comedy sequel Clerks
II debuted in sixth place with $10.1M from 2,150 theaters. Averaging
a good $4,680 per site, the R-rated story of a pair of slackers still doing
little with their lives in their thirties opened a bit weaker than Smith's
2001 late-summer pic Jay and Silent Bob Strike
Back which bowed to $11M on its way to $30.1M. Ticket sales
for Clerks II fell a sharp 18% on Saturday
from Friday indicating that Smith's loyal fans rushed out on opening day
and that there may not be much of an audience left for future weeks. The
film earned favorable reviews and was released by MGM and The Weinstein
Company.

Fox saw a disappointing opening for its romantic comedy My
Super Ex-Girlfriend which debuted to $8.6M from 2,702 theaters
for a mild $3,184 average. The PG-13 film stars Uma Thurman as a woman
who is secretly a super hero that exacts revenge on her ex-boyfriend (Luke
Wilson) for dumping her. Reviews were mixed for the Ivan Reitman-directed
pic. Studio research showed that the audience was split evenly between
men and women with those age 25 and older making up 59% of the crowd. With
so many other comedies in the marketplace from Owen Wilson, the Wayans
brothers, Kevin Smith, Meryl Streep, and Adam Sandler, plus Pirates
still raking it in, audiences found no special reason to spend
money on Ex-Girlfriend.

Superman Returns dipped 40% in its
fourth flight to $7.4M and pushed its cume to $178.3M. The pricey Warner
Bros. film is still ahead of the $171.9M that its last super hero film
Batman Begins collected after the same
amount of time. The Caped Crusader pic, however, held up better grossing
$10M in its fourth frame. The $200M domestic mark still seems reachable
for Superman. Oversaes, the international
cume climbed to $110M.

Meryl Streep's hit comedy The Devil Wears Prada
enjoyed another solid hold suffering the smallest decline in the top ten.
The Fox release took in $7.4M, off only 29%, to lift its sum to $97.5M.
Devil opened on the same weekend as
Superman Returns with a much smaller
gross, but is now doing nearly identical weekend business.

Disney bookended the top ten with its Pixar smash Cars
which dropped 37% to $4.9M in its seventh lap. The animated hit has now
grossed $229.5M putting it at number 49 on the list of all-time domestic
blockbusters after X-Men: The Last Stand
which opened two weeks earlier and has taken in $232.8M to date.

The weekend's four new releases tossed a quartet of summer pictures
out of the top ten. Adam Sandler's latest winner Click
grossed $4M in its fifth frame, off 44%, for a total of $128.2M. The $83M
Sony title should finish with $135-140M. Fellow comedy Nacho
Libre with Jack Black tumbled 69% to $502,060 for a cume of
$78.7M to date. Paramount looks to end its run with just under $80M.

Keanu Reeves grossed $678,030 for his sci-fi toon A
Scanner Darkly and $580,465 for his sci-fi romance The
Lake House this weekend. Warner Independent Pictures has taken
in $3.2M with Scanner and is shooting
for the $5M mark. Parent company Warner Bros. has grossed $50.6M with its
Sandra Bullock tale and is heading for $52M.

The global warming documentary An Inconvenient
Truth remains a popular summer flick slipping just 14% to $1M
in its ninth weekend. Paramount Vantage has collected $18.8M to date and
is enjoying remarkable momentum.

The top ten films grossed $137.6M which was up 12% from last year when
Johnny Depp's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
remained at number one for the second time with $28.3M; and
up 2% from 2004 when Matt Damon's The Bourne Supremacy
opened in the top spot with $52.5M.

Compared to projections, Monster House
opened close to my $25M forecast while Lady in
the Water bowed well below my $33M prediction. Clerks
II was close to my $12M projection and My
Super Ex-Girlfriend came in below my $13M forecast.

This column is updated three times each week:
Thursday
(upcoming weekend's summary), Sunday
(post-weekend analysis with estimates), and Monday
night (actuals). Data source: Exhibitor
Relations and EDI. Opinions expressed
in this column are those solely of the author.